Although recognised by Lowestoft men as marking the boundary beyond which they might not land herrings, it was ignored altogether by Yarmouth; as it had not been placed in pursuance of any legal order. The Yarmouth bailiffs however abstained from any further assertion of their claims at this time, and the Lowestoft merchants and the Suffolk Ketchmen continued to carry on their dealings with the fishing boats in the Roads as before. Why the Act of Parliament, advised by the judges, was not introduced, or, if introduced, was not passed, we are not told. Probably the influence of Yarmouth in the House of Commons was very different at this time from what it was when the “Commons” supported Lowestoft against the Crown in the times of Edward and Richard. The death of Elizabeth, and the succession of James I., gave Yarmouth an opportunity to procure a new charter from the Crown, which contained provisions for removing the doubts that had been raised as to the whereabouts and extent of Kirkley Road. It contained a new grant of Kirkley Road, and actually revived the obsolete “leuca,” as a measure of 2 miles, so as to make the new grant include “Lestoff” Road, and the whole stretch of Roads, “from Winterton Ness to Easton Ness, containing in length 14 leuks or thereabouts, and in breadth into the sea 7 leuks from every part of the shore within those places.” For this charter they undertook to pay the Crown an additional rent of £5 per annum. {80} Having thus repaired their armour they waited for a convenient occasion to renew the contest. But some 50 years or more were to pass, and another war was to be waged, before Yarmouth’s opportunity arrived for testing the strength of her new weapon. LECTURE IV. PART I.—IN THE TIME OF CHARLES I. At the beginning of the 17th century the decay of our fisheries, and the consequent loss of sailors, on whose services the country depended for the protection of our shores, coupled with the warning which the Spaniards had given us, had caused a sense of national danger, which was realised by many besides ministers of the Crown. During his imprisonment of 13 years in the Tower of London, poor Sir Walter Raleigh wrote a pamphlet, which he presented to James I., in which he complained bitterly of our shame in allowing the Dutch and the French to get the command of our home fisheries. He says that “While the English were sending their ships into the North Seas to catch whales, the Dutch were catching the herrings and codfish in our own seas; that in 1603 the Dutch fishermen sold £1,759,000 worth of herrings, and employed 2,000 busses and 50,000 men.” Among other pamphlets written to rouse the nation and the government to take active measures for curing this evil, a powerful appeal appeared from an anonymous writer, entitled “England’s way to win wealth and to employ ships and manners. By Tobias, Gentleman, Fisherman and Mariner,” dated 1614. Speaking of the Dutch fishermen, he says—